A method is already known in which a glass fiber is coupled to a waveguide which has been inserted into an indium phosphide chip. In order to be able to couple the glass fiber in an adjusted state to the waveguide prepared for coupling, it is necessary to etch a V-shaped trench into the indium phosphide chip. Furthermore, the adjustment of the glass fiber must be done manually under a microscope so that the coupling losses occurring due to defective adjustment are kept as low as possible. (M. Hamacher, A novel fibre/chip coupling technique with an integrated strain relief on InP, ECOC 92, Berlin, pages 537 fl.) This method is time-consuming and expensive and cannot be applied to mass production.
Furthermore, a method is known in which a laser chip is adjusted on an integrated optical circuit with respect to waveguides with the aid of spacers and adjusting devices. However, this method requires the laser chip to be structured by means of etching operations for the purpose of holding the spacers and the adjusting devices. Furthermore, the spacers and the boundaries must be applied to the integrated optical circuit. This is very expensive however, since the spacers and the adjusting devices have to be produced and positioned with high accuracy. In addition, the laser chip must be inserted manually into the adjusting devices. (Jackson, Flip/Chip, Self-Aligned, Optoelectronic Transceiver Module, ECOC 92, Berlin, pages 329 ff.).